Fiue hundred pointes of good husbandrie
directing what grass, corn, etc., is proper to be sown; what trees
to be planted; how land is to be improved; with whatever is fit to
be done for the benefit of the FARMER, in every month of the YEAR.
By Thomas Tusser, Esq. To which are added notes and observations,
explaining many obsolete TERMS used therein, and what is agreeable
to the present practice in several counties of this kingdom. A work
very necessary and useful for gentlemen, as well as occupiers of land,
whether wood-ground or tillage and pasture.
1810. A very correct reprint of the First Edition of 1557 was issued
by R. Triphook and William Sancho.
1812. Five Hundred Points of good Husbandry, as well for the champion
or open country, as for the woodland or several; together with a Book
of Huswifery. Being a Calendar of rural and domestic Economy, for
every month in the year; and exhibiting a Picture of the Agriculture,
Customs, and Manners of England, in the Sixteenth Century. By Thomas
Tusser, Gentleman. A New Edition, with notes, Georgical, Illustrative
and Explanatory, a Glossary, and other Improvements. By William Mavor,
LL.D.,[36] Honorary Member of the Bard of Agriculture, etc.
"Multa renascentur, quæ jam cecidêre, cadentque,
Quæ nunc sunt in honore."---_Hor._
London, printed for Lackington, Allen & Co., Temple of the Muses,
Finsbury-Square, 8vo. 1812. Dedicated to the President and Members of
the Board of Agriculture, pp. 36, xl., and 338.
1834. Mr. Charles Clark of Great Totham, Essex, printed at his private
press a few copies of the original edition of 1557.
1848. A Selection was published at Oxford with the following title:
Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, by Thomas Tusser. Now newly
corrected and edited and heartily commended to all true lovers of
country life and honest thrift. By H. M. W. Oxford, 1848, 16mo.
The work is also included in Southey's Select Works of the British
Poets, 143-199.
_Extracts from the Registers of the Stationers' Company._
1557. John Daye had licence to print "the Hundreth poyntes of good
'_Husserie_.'" Regist. Station. A. fo. 23_a_.
1559-60. June 20. T. Marshe had licence "to print the boke of
Husbandry." Ibid. fo. 486. This last title occurs in these registers
much lower.
1561. Richard Tottell was to print "A boke intituled one hundreth good
poyntes of husboundry lately maryed unto a hundreth good poyntes of
Huswiffry newly corrected and amplyfyed." Ibid. fo. 74_a_.
1565. A licence to Alde to print "An hundreth poyntes of evell
huswyfraye," probably a satire or parody on Tusser. Ibid. fo. 131.
[1] The name of Tusser does not appear in the parochial registers at
Rivenhall, which only extend back to 1634. According to Dr. Mavor, the
name and race have long been extinct.
[2] History of English Poetry, 1840, vol. iii. p. 248.
[3] Letter from J. Townsend, Esq., Windsor Herald, to Dr. Mavor, quoted
in his edition of Tusser, p. 7.
[4] History of English Poetry, 1840, vol. iii. p. 248.
[5] See chapter 114, stanza 5.
[6] Dr. Rimbault, in his Cheque Book of the Chapel Royal, quotes the
following from _Liber Niger Domini Regis_ (temp. Edward VI.): "The
children of the Chappelle were 8 in number, with a Master of Songe to
teach them. And when any of the children comene to be xviij yeares of
age, and their voices change, ne cannot be preferred in this Chappelle,
the nombere being full, then, yf they will assente, the kyng assynethe
them to a College of Oxford or Cambridge of his fundatione, there to be
at fynding and studye both suffycyently, tylle the king may otherwise
advanse them."--Query, was Tusser assigned in this way to King's
College, Cambridge?
[7] Nicholas Udall took his degree of M.A. at Oxford in 1534.
[8] Hatcher, MSS. Catalog. Præpos. Soc. Schol. Coll. Regal. Cant.
[9] Of this nobleman, the ancestor of the Earl of Uxbridge, a very
full account is given in Dugdale, from which it appears that he was
born at Wednesbury in Staffordshire, his father being one of the
Serjeants-at-Mace of the city of London. Under Henry VIII. he was
Ambassador to France, and Master of the Post. In 1549 he obtained
a grant of the fee of the house without Temple Bar, first called
Paget House, then Leicester House, and lastly Essex House. Two years
afterwards he was Ambassador to the Emperor Charles V., and in the
same year was called by writ to Parliament by the title of Lord Paget
of Beaudesert, _Com. Salop._, and soon after sent to treat for peace
with France. On the fall of the Duke of Somerset, he was charged
with designing the murder of several noblemen at Paget House, and in
consequence was sent to the Tower, deprived of his honours and offices,
and fined £6000, one-third of which was remitted. On the death of
Edward VI. he joined the Earl of Arundel, the chief champion of Queen
Mary, and gained her favour by his activity. Soon after her marriage
with Philip, he was sent Ambassador to the Emperor at Brussels, to
consult Cardinal Pole respecting the restoration of Popery. In this
reign he was made Lord Privy Seal. Lord Paget died very aged, in 1563,
and was buried at Drayton in Middlesex. He left issue by Anne, daughter
of ---- Prestin, Esq., _Com. Lanc._, three sons and five daughters. His
eldest son Henry succeeded him in the title; but dying in 1568, the
peerage descended to his next brother, Thomas, whom Tusser claims also
for a patron. Thomas being zealously affected to Popery, and implicated
in the plots in favour of Mary Queen of Scots, fled and was attainted
1587, and died three years after at Brussels, leaving one son, Thomas,
who succeeded him.
[10] Of the name and family of his first wife we are entirely ignorant.
[11] In later editions printed Ratwade, and transferred to Sussex, a
mistake into which Warton has fallen.
[12] Tusser is generally supposed to have addressed Sir _Richard_
Southwell as "Thou worthy wight, thou famous knight," but it is clear
that Sir _Robert_ Southwell is intended, for in 1573 Tusser alludes to
Southwell's death as having occurred some years before, but Sir Richard
Southwell did not die till 1579, while Sir Robert died twenty years
previously.--Cooper, Ath. Cant.
[13] His second son, Edmond, was baptized at St. Giles's, Cripplegate,
13th March, 1572-3.
[14] The plague to which Tusser evidently alludes (in stanza 31 of
Autobiography), according to Maitland, raged in London in 1573 and 1574.
[15] Cooper, Ath. Cantab. vol. i. p. 422.
[16] See p. xxix.
[17] Survey of London, ed. 1618, p. 474. The church of St. Mildred was
destroyed in the Great Fire.
[18] Braham Hall was in 1460 the residence of Sir John Braham, and
is about a mile and a half from Manningtree, and in the parish of
Brantham, where Tusser first introduced the culture of barley;
"In _Brantham_ where rye but no barley did grow,
Good barley I had, as a many did know.
Five seam of an acre, I truly was paid,
For thirty load muck of each acre so laid."
--Chapt. 19, st. 9.
The field where barley first grew at Brantham is still pointed out by
tradition.
[19] Hist. of Eng. Poetry, vol. iii. p. 249.
[20] Thus altered in "Recreations for ingenious Head Pieces; or a
pleasant Grove for their Wits to walk in, etc.," 8vo. 1644:--
"Tusser, they tell me, when thou wert alive
Thou, teaching thrift, thyself could'st never thrive:
So, like the whetstone, many men are wont,
To sharpen others, when themselves are blunt."
[21] Shelf-mark, 10817, g.
[22] Notes and Queries, 1st Ser. vol. xii. p. 193.
[23] Chapter 30, stanza 3.
[24]
"What season then better of all the whole yeere
Thy needie poor neighbour to comfort and cheere?"
[25] Vol. i. pp. 136, 7.
[26] A very curious example is printed from Harl. MS. 913 in "Early
English Poems," ed. Furnivall, pp. 21, 2.
[27] This was probably a broadside edition of the Dialogue found in the
Book of Husbandry.
[28] No copy of this date is known to be extant, though it is mentioned
both in Weston's and King's Catalogues.
[29] This is the first edition of "Five Hundred Points."
[30] Differing very little from the preceding. It is probable that
Tusser might have left, before his death, some corrections on the ed.
of 1580, which were introduced into this. After this edition, errors
seem to have multiplied in every successive issue.
[31] In White's Catalogue, 1788; Mr. Ashby saw a copy in possession of
Dr. Lort.
[32] Extremely incorrect. Reprinted in "Somers' Tracts" by Sir W.
Scott, vol. iii. p. 403.
[33] An edition little known, but certainly existing.
[34] Payne's Catalogue, 1773; Deck's, 1792, little known.
[35] In this edition some errors are corrected, and the orthography is
considerably modernized.
[36] Rector of Woodstock.
THE LAST WILL OF THOMAS TUSSER.
In the name of God, Amen, the xxv of Aprill 1580. I, Thomas Tusser,
of Chesterton, in the Countye of Cambridge, Gentleman, being feeble
in bodye, but perfecte in memorie, thanks be to God, doe make and
ordaine this my Last Will and Testament in manner and forme following,
revokinge all other Wills heretofore made. That is to say, Ffirst
and principallye I give and betake my sowle to Allmightie God the
Father (my maker) and to his son Jesus Christ (my onelye Redeemer) by
whose merites I most firmelye beleve and trust to be saved and to be
partaker of lyef everlastinge, and to the Holye Gost (my Comforter)
Three personnes in one ever Godheade, whome I doe most humblye thanke
that he hathe mercifullye kepte me untill this tyme, and that he hathe
given me tyme and space to confesse and bewaile my sinnes, and that he
hathe forgiven me them all, thorough the merites of our Savioure Jesus
Christ, which I doe undoubtedlye beleve, because he hathe mercifullye
promised yt, to whome be praise for ever and ever, Amen.
_Item._ I give and bequeathe unto Thomas Tusser, my eldest Sonne, to
be delivered unto to him within one yere next after my decease Fyftye
Pounds of goode and lawful monye of England, parcell of the Three
Hundrethe and Thirtie Pownds which William Tusser my Brother dothe owe
unto me uppon one recognisaunce wherein he standethe bounde unto me
for the true paiment thereof; and my will is, That suche trustye Frend
or Frends, as shall be hereafter in this my last Will and Testament
named, shall have the use of the said Fiftie Pounds for and duringe
the nonage of my said Sonne Thomas, and untill suche time as he shall
accomplishe and come to the Age of xx and One Yeres, putting in
sufficient suerties for the true paiment thereof unto the said Thomas
my Sonne, and alsoe to paye for and towards the bringinge up of my
said Sonne Thomas, yerelye, the summe of Fyve Pownds untill he shall
accomplish and come to the Age of Twentye and One Yeres; and when my
said Sonne Thomas shall accomplishe his said Age of Twentye and One
Yeres, I will that the said summe of Fyftye Pownds shalbe, within one
monethe next ensueing after the said accomplishment of Twentye and One
Yeres unto him well and trulye contented and paid at one whole and
entire paiment, &c. &c. THOMAS TUSSER.
_Item._ I give unto John Tusser my second Sonne other Fyftie Pownds
of lawfull monye of England due unto me by the foresaid recognisance,
and to be bestowed and employed to his use duringe his minoritie, and
likewise to be paid unto him in suche and as lardge manner and forme
to all constructions and purposes as is before declared of the other
Fyftie Pownds before devised unto my Sonne Thomas Tusser; and also
Fyve Pownds to be paid yerely during his minoritie in manner and forme
before rehersed. THOMAS TUSSER.
_Item._ I give and bequeathe unto Edmond Tusser, my Sonne, and to
Marye Tusser, my daughter, and unto either of them the Summe of Fyftye